Seedings
by GEOZZSTEVENZZ
Summary: A chronology of events leading to the creation of Crystal Incorporated and its political Siamese- The Esterian military-industrial superpower. Warning: Grey, morally ambiguous Kal-El "Lor Van" . Non-canon.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Inspiration:**

**What would have happened if instead of attempting to save humanity and get accepted by it, Kal-el had spent his sufficiently advanced technology and power trying to bring back his race from extinction.**

**Kal-el was designed and raised by the last remnants of his people; to be their final hope at being more than just a tragic lesson. Their final crowning achievement in self preservation.**

**SEEDINGS**

**Disclaimer:** I neither own Superman, nor am I making any money out of this.

**Chronology: Rise of the Crystal-EsteRian Confederate (1983 - 2003)**

_A chronology of events leading to the creation of Crystal Incorporated and its political Siamese- The Esterian military-industrial superpower._

**1983**

A young man appears in Estenia looking for employment in an emerging solar research company, EsTech. Other than the name he gives them, Lor Van, he has no other title or formal education to his name.

The unique disposition of the young man manifests clearly enough to force Irvin, the lead researcher in that specific department, into taking a quick glance at the research notes so naively surrendered to him.

He quickly smothers the rising unease as his eyes skim across too similar a string of equations. Still, somehow sensing his unease, the guard standing by the office door steps further into the office, placing himself smoothly in Lor Van's blind spot.

Its a few more flips of the pages before Irvin realizes he doesn't understand the rest of the equations he has just gone through, or the principles behind them. And yet his decades of experience, trials and failures whisper that he is holding something truly potent in his hands. And it is closer to the truth than he will ever get.

Its silent for a few, until the old man, having regained some modicum of self restraint, looks calculatingly at the scientist standing before him.

"Clear resonance energy?" the scratchy voice, hoarse from shouting orders all day, breathes out. It's supposed to be a question but it comes out as a statement. He needs the faith, and at his age he can now only hope.

The young man gives a small nod.

When he mutters his next words, his age and fatigue cannot help but seep through his tired bony frame. He shudders at the small spark of long forgotten eagerness that flits across his chest. The sacrifices will finally mean something.

He clutches tighter at the small book in his hands and waves away the soldier, studying the young man all the while for any signs of deceit. The two regard each other for what seems like eternity until at last, Irvin gives a sigh of satisfaction.

"This changes everything."

The young man speaks for the second time since he sat down in his office," Yes it does."

Irvin smiles despite the creeping unease at the magnitude of events that will fill the coming month. He cannot help but feel akin to the titan Prometheus. At last he has brought men the fire of the gods.

He doesn't realize until a few years later how right the comparison is.

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

**Four months later...**

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

The research center is no longer recognizable.

Security over utility has become the norm. Where high perimeter walls once sufficed, demarcated, sonar infested, three stage checkpoints have taken their place; monitored day and night by stone faced spetsanz vets with their ever eager trigger fingers.

The low hum of overcharged electric fences only serves to further lend to the feel that the higher ups are sparing no expenses in sending their message across. Trespassers will die.

It was inevitable that the military is first to find out. The half whispered jokes and warnings that they have more spies than the country has soldiers do not seem so amusing now.

No one bothers asking who the spy in their midst is- it hardly matters now. The company has long been nationalized and all projects declared as property of the state.

It is not known exactly what type of arrangement the government suits make with Lor Van the day after they first storm in; but the meeting held in his presence later that week informs them that he has been granted full citizenship by the Soviet. No one is sure whether to applaude, so the room falls into an awkward silence after the announcement.

It is of little consequence though, as Lor Van walks out soon after with one of the more senior attendees; a deputy premier by the looks of it. They don't see him for the rest of that week. Few people spare discomfited glances at Irvin for the blatant disregard for his position, but know not to broach the topic.

It has been a sour point of contention between the two lead researchers, one that has inevitably led to Irvin's demotion to that of deputy to Lor Van. The military has no patience for pacifists, especially when they make to hinder what could be the greatest victory to the Soviet Union since the creation of their first nuke.

The Central committee is especially eager to lend the much needed victory to the Kremlin to assuage the sinking morale from a poorly performing post war economy.

The implications of a cheap source of energy on the industrial sector alone are staggering enough to shift the balance of power firmly to the USSR, and they can only imagine the local and global consequences of such an event.

But they will not get ahead of themselves.

The research is to stay at the Republic level until they have a solid working model to present the Kremiln. It should also help to some extent with the covert nature of the project. God knows how much the Americans have riddled their Kremlin ranks with traitors.

If word ever got out...Cheap, clean and near limitless energy on the scale demonstrated by the Proximity Generator Cell, is potent enough a discovery to trigger a third world war, if handled carelessly. And with the diplomatic relations between Russia and America, almost every action is careless.

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

**September, 1983**

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

The Americans take one week to find out why the Russian military is so busy in the previously unimportant Baltic state of Esteria. It takes a further three for the combined voice and threats of the NATO member states to dissuade them from an immediate preemptive nuclear strike.

The overall feeling is that a nuclear strike is too premature at the moment. Especially since they have yet to obtain a working copy of the technology they would be destroying. Notwithstanding the additional bad image the alliance would get this soon after signing the Helsinki accords with the Soviet. A temporary committee is created on the 18th of September to extract a viable copy of the device's designs and notes.

In the meantime the American ambassador to the Soviet receives instruction to commence diplomatic negotiations with Russia for a sharing of the technology.

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

**December, 1983**

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

It is already December by the time established diplomatic channels fail at a resolution to what the American publicly term as non-peaceful actions of the Soviet. They make no effort to hide the repositioning of their ICBMs from the miles high Soviet spy satellites.

The Kremlin is even less amused the first time they discover what the Union Republic of Esteria has been up to, in cahoots with the VeCheka. That is, until a high ranking investigative committee sent by Moscow, observes a demonstration of what a single unit PGC in operation. The attending scientist, one whom the Committee has never heard of before this day, assures them that the research facility and its neighboring town have been off the national grid for the past six months, and will continue to be so for the next nine to ten years.

On Christmas Eve the Russian ambassador to the West flies his family home for the Christmas to celebrate the religious festival in Saint Petersburg.


	2. Chapter 2

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

**June, 1984**

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

The white elephant of a Global 'government' that is the UN takes its first real solid stance when the two nuclear powers start moving their governments into bunkers and prepping their carriers. The signs are as clear as they're going to get, and the newly named Secretary General has no has no intention of going down in history as the man that ushered in the end of the world.

In a bold political move that raises more than a few eyebrows, he move a motion to replace the existing charter with one that would completely do away with the need for a security council. His heeding call being that the United Nation Chambers were meant as a meeting place for equals, where the not so powerful nations could also decide the fate of the planet; instead of the VETO grudge match arena it has become.

India, South Africa and Egypt are the loudest supporters, but he gets more than enough assenting glances as he steps down from the podium. Nobody seems to have considered the financial impact of alienating the largest contributors to the UN's coffer- not that he hasn't already found a workable solution.

Governments are not the only bodies with deep pockets and an interest in the avoiding the disruptive nature of wars.

Lex Luthor has big plans for the world, and it had better be alive to see them.

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

**December, 1984**

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

Their ejection from the United Nations is the biggest shock the Big 5 have had since the commencement of the 'Research Crises' as the media has taken to calling it. A loud rally call as any of just what kind of reaction they are to expect if they trigger world war three.

The only power that seems little affected is the Russians, who have been maintaining a tangible distance from global politics since the start of the crisis. The obvious reason is that they are still too engrossed in the completion of their research project to be bothered with verbal spars, not that they are at all lax in their military preparedness.

The exact details of what research has the big boys up in arms is still a much protected secret from the general public, but not enough to stop the sensation nature of the media from riling the public sentiment.

The propaganda machine has been in full gear, and has gone as far as dragging Lor Van into their ever more fantastically woven reports. They don't lay the blame squarely on him, but they get as close to it as possible, with the meager information they can get on the man's history.

When one of his many assistant thinks to show him the latest headline featuring his ID card photo, he barely blinks at the latest moniker. She searches his face for some sort of reaction; be it disdain or guilt, but slinks away when his gaze slides to her in question.

She nervously shuffles back to her station, taking his apparent silence for offence. She doesn't consider the alternative that flits ever so briefly across her mind in that instant he glances at the headlines. That maybe there is something darker to Lor Van than the silent, detached genius they've come to respect and envy.

She cannot figure what he could possibly gain from triggering a third world war, and so she dismisses her thoughts as the musings as the musings of a tired, overworked mind. She still can't avoid the hollow feeling that rip at her gut every time she looks at Lor Van afterwards, searching for a glimmer of something she knows she will not find.

It is the first time one Gelena Merlec gets a nagging feeling that maybe she is on the wrong side of the fence in this one.

Lex Luthor knows an assassination attempt when he sees one; and he has had more than enough in the last few months to fuel his nightmare for years to come.

If anything, he feels a little insulted that the people behind this have been so unimaginative in their recent efforts. His enemies are getting dumber, and he doesn't like how that reflects on him.

Their first attempt had been quite ingenious ad would have killed him if he hadn't been that much more intelligent than them. Infecting his girlfriend with a particularly nasty form of flu had been a masterstroke, and would have looked every bit like the tragedy it was meant to portray.

Unfortunately for them Lex Luthor did not make a habit of dying on other people's terms. Especially not when he owned a whole research facility dedicated to weaponizing biological agents -and their respective antidotes. He had hardly had the flu for more than three hours before he'd been flown to Cadmus Labs, as they worked to reverse engineer a specific vaccine. He was cured in two hours.

Now they were expecting him to get into a limousine with a driver he hadn't picked out himself. Like he was some green politician who'd never had his life threatened before.

He barely glances at the attractive young woman playing his chauffer before he turns around, and walks back to his office. He thanks the gods that at least this time they've learnt from the number of snipers they've lost. He curses his hasty assumption when his more than sensitive hearing, catches several muffled reports from a suppressed rifle.

He needs new, more serious enemies.

Thirty minutes later a heavily armed convoy rivaling the president's own pulls up to his offices, spewing secret services type into the far too desensitized crowds of home going UN staff.

The previous limo is found a day later in a suburb the next day. The only sign of the previous occupant is a drop of blood on the driver's headrest.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

**June, 1985**

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

Pressure to reveal the nature and purpose of their alternate energy research kicks into high gear after the details of the PGC is leaked by a defected scientist, one Dr. Gelena Merlec. Her proximity to Lor Van gives her the most powerful bargaining chip yet: the best working knowledge of the theory behind Lor Van's PGC, second only to that of Irvin and Lor Van himself.

She is immediately transferred by the NATO temporary committee to work on their ongoing attempts to replicate the Soviet's PGC prototype as part of her asylum deal.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

**August, 1985**

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

The Soviet Union starts making aggressive moves towards Finland as their advances in the PGC technology become more pronounced; the latest intelligence suggesting that they have a working nuclear defense strategy centered solely on the Proximity Generation tech.

The western powers are noticeably disquieted especially after a live demonstration is orchestrated by the Russians through a border dispute that escalates to quickly not to have been engineered. The Kremlin is eager to field test their weapon.

The nature of the weapon is not so much a revelation as it is a confirmation of what the Americans had already suspected. The range and power of the electromagnetic pulse is however, a whole other matter, and the dedicated NATO satellite feeds capture each second of the attack as mile after mile of electronic signatures blink off.


End file.
